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Tuesday, February 2, 2016

U.S. BOMBS KILL MORE CIVILIANS THAN REPORTED

During a previous strike against an Islamic State cash storage facility, U.S.
commanders had been "willing to consider up to 50 civilian casualties due
to the importance of the target".

CNN REPORTS:

"It's tragic, and it's not something that we want to do. One of the
burdens of command is to weigh the military value of a target, versus
the potential for civilian loss of life," the spokesman for the U.S.-led
anti-ISIS coalition, Col. Steve Warren, told reporters Wednesday. ( Jan. 20, 2016)

In recent weeks, the U.S. has said it will assess all targets on a
case-by-case basis and may be more willing to tolerate civilian
casualties for more significant targets.

REALLY? MAYBE LIKE THE LITTLE BOY PICTURED BELOW?

A Syrian boy looks out from a window inside the bullet-riddled facade of
his home after what activists said were overnight US-led airstrikes
against the Islamic State in Raqqa on Nov. 24, 2014.

" In almost
a-year-and-a-half of non-stop bombing in Iraq and Syria, the United States admits to
killing just 22 innocent people.

BUT WHERE CHILDREN ARE KNOWINGLY WITHIN A TARGET, IS KILLING CHILDREN 'OKAY', JUST A CONSEQUENCE OF WAR, EVEN THOUGH THOSE AIMING BOMBS KNOW THERE ARE CHILDREN BELOW?

IS IT 'OKAY' THAT THE MOST AMERICA OR COALITION FORCES CAN EXPECT TO FACE FOR KILLING A CHILD, A MOTHER, AN ELDERLY OR DISABLED PERSON IS TO PAY THE FAMILY ABOUT $10,000 USD, TOPS?

IS THAT THE VALUE ANY OF US WOULD PLACE ON ONE OF OUR CHILDREN, OUR SPOUSES, OUR PARENTS?

IF OUR FAMILY MEMBER LAY DEAD AT OUR FEET, BLOWN TO BITS BEFORE OUR EYES, WOULD WE DEMAND TO KNOW WHY?WOULD WE AT LEAST DEMAND AN INVESTIGATION? WOULD WE BE SATISFIED WITH AN ANSWER LIKE, "WELL, THAT'S A PRICE OF WAR...AND HERE'S $10,000. RUN ALONG NOW."?

HERE'S THE MAIN POINT...LOOK, REALLY LOOK, AT THAT PHOTO OF THE LITTLE BOY IN THE WINDOW OF HIS RUINED HOUSE... WE DON'T KNOW WHETHER OR NOT HE HAD SIBLINGS OR PARENTS KILLED BY THAT ATTACK OR IF HE'LL DIE IN THE NEXT "COALITION" STRIKE. SHOULD THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT CONTINUE ATTACKS OR CONTINUE TO FUND AND SUPPLY ATTACKS ON HIS HOME, ON HIM?IMAGINE THAT'S YOUR CHILD, GRANDCHILD, NEPHEW, LITTLE BROTHER, WHATEVER.NOW ANSWER THAT QUESTION.SHOULD WE JUST KEEP ON AND ON DOING THIS TO CHILDREN, TO CIVILIANS TRYING TO SURVIVE WAR IN PLACES WHERE WE HAVE NO BUSINESS BEING, KILLING PEOPLE WE SAY WE ARE THERE TO "HELP"?

DID THESE VICTIMS OF WAR EVER REALLY CALL OUT TO US TO "HELP" OR DID WE JUST DECIDE TO INTERFERE? GOVERNMENTS BE DAMNED, LET'S ASK THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT!

I SERIOUSLY DOUBT ANY HUMAN ON EARTH WOULD WANT THE KIND OF "HELP" THAT LEAVES THEM OR THOSE THEY LOVE DEAD, OR ON THE RUN FROM A BOMBED-OUT VILLAGE, STARVING ON THE ROAD TO AN IMAGINED SAFETY THEY MAY NEVER REACH WHEN IT DID NOT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!YES, IT'S MY GOVERNMENT DOING THIS, AND YES, I DO LOVE AMERICA FIERCELY, (AMERICA, BUT NOT ITS LEADERS) BUT I CANNOT, WILL NEVER ACCEPT THIS. I AM FOR THE CHILDREN, ALL CHILDREN, ANY CHILD!

THE SMALLEST CHILD IS WORTH FAR MORE THAT A FEW THOUSAND DOLLARS IN "COMPENSATION" TO ME!

IF MY GOVERNMENT IS THE CAUSE OF THEIR UNNECESSARY DEATHS, THEIR NEEDLESS EXTRA SUFFERING IN THIS PROXY WAR AMERICA IS INVOLVED IN, SOMEONE MUST TRULY PAY, AND NOT IN DOLLARS, NOT IN "BLOOD MONEY"!

GO AND ASK THE PEOPLE.

THE VILLAGE OF AL GHARRAAbdul-Aziz al Hassan is from the tiny mud-brick village of al Gharra, his first name the same as the
mountain nearby. He left the village while the Islamic State (IS) was in charge,
but it is because of a bomb from an American plane that he cannot go
back. What happened to his family is the story of just one bomb of the
35,000 dropped so far during 10,000 missions flown in the US-led air war
against the Islamic State. Even after IS took the village, the presence of Islamic State fighters there was rare.
They largely stayed within the base on the mountain.

“We managed to live normal lives
most of the time. We had family and friends and loved ones around us. We
entered each others’ houses for gatherings or parties. We shared the
same happiness and sadness.” The US-led coalition occasionally launched
airstrikes in the distance. The ground shook “like an earthquake;”
sometimes a house fell down.

But it wasn’t the bombs or even the
dictates of the Islamic State that made al Hassan first leave home. It
was the grinding poverty, worsened by war.

‘There was no bread and no work,” he said. He took his wife and
daughter and drove to Turkey. “My father stayed there to keep the house.
The moment you leave, IS takes it. All our belongings are there." While al Hassan was in Turkey, as spring turned into summer last
year, the war took another turn. Kurdish fighters of the People’s
Protection Units, or YPG, controlled territory that stopped just short
of the mountain.

Backed by American air power, they began an offensive
to recapture it from the Islamic State. Al Gharra stood in the way. The
road to the nearest town — Hasaka, held by the Kurds — was about a mile
away from the village. The first bomb fell on that road between 10 and
11 in the morning on May 6 . Then a plane started circling over the
village. People were afraid to stay in their homes. They ran into the
open. Al Hassan’s father, Ismail, tried to run as well. But he was too
late.

The villagers remember seeing the plane point its nose down and
dive, dropping a bomb. It then climbed away. Al Hassan’s father lay on
the ground in a crumpled heap, dead, in front of the ruins of his house.

An uncle phoned to tell al Hassan what had happened. He rushed back
to the village from Turkey.

His father had died on the first day of the
Kurdish offensive to take the mountain. It was still going on when al
Hassan returned.

“Most of the people had fled because a drone was still
roaming around. The airstrikes didn’t stop … one every 15 to 30
minutes,” he said. There were more bombs as the Kurdish forces advanced. “Any village would be heavily bombed until the Kurds managed to get
inside. Then they’d let it be. The airstrikes were unbelievable. It was
complete destruction. They kept bombing until they got to the mountain.”The YPG (a Kurdish group) general commanding the assault on what the Kurds call Mount
Kezwan was inclined to see villagers and
Islamic State fighters as one and the same. He was quoted
as saying that “many of the local villages are Arab and they often
support IS [the Islamic State].”General Gerer said the two main problems in capturing the mountain were
the terrain and the fact that “many of the local villages are Arab and
they often supported Daesh”, using the invariable name in Iraq and Syria
for Isis.

And, in the offensive against the
jihadist group, the Kurds are often fighting for land they would claim
as part of their own future state. They see the Arabs in some of the
towns and villages they have captured as aliens with no right to be
there.

Al Hassan left his village for the second time — again with his
family — a day before the Kurdish forces took full control of the area. They fled over the mountain and drove through Raqqa, the place the
Islamic State calls its capital, before crossing the Turkish border.

“When the Kurds arrived, they kicked everybody out under the pretext
that IS had littered the village with booby traps,” he said. “So the
entire village left. Almost half of the village was destroyed — then it
was completely empty.”
Before they left, they buried his father in a simple grave in the village’s small cemetery. He was just 55 years old and his entire family lived with him. “Even if we went back, where would we live? In our destroyed house?” Al
Hassan asked bitterly. “Does the American government think we have
money? Do they think I can just go back and rebuild our house?” He and
the rest of the family are now stuck in Turkey … refugees.The US military would not confirm whether or not bombs were dropped on
al Gharra (also known as al Gharba).

A spokesman for Operation Inherent
Resolve, the name of the US-led military campaign against the Islamic
State, offered a vague response to our questions. He simply said the
coalition had “conducted a number of airstrikes near al Hasaka” on May 6
and 7. When pressed about whether the mountain or the village was hit
on those days, the spokesman replied: “We can confirm that Abdul-Aziz
mountain is geographically close enough to be considered ‘near al
Hasaka'."

GlobalPost found other instances of US airstrikes — detailed below —
that probably killed civilians but which were not officially
investigated, or which were investigated and dismissed. In almost
a-year-and-a-half of bombing Iraq and Syria, the United States admits to
killing just 22 innocent people. An independent monitoring group says
the real figure could be more than a thousand.

But some US investigations were cursory
at best, amounting to what appears to be willful blindness.

In an
airstrike on one Syrian village — also detailed below — it seems that
simple confusion over place names meant that civilian casualties were
never investigated and were left uncounted. A coalition spokesman
eventually said that CENTCOM would review that case too, after
GlobalPost pointed out the village on a map.

Given the immense firepower deployed in Iraq and Syria, killing civilians
is frighteningly easy, especially from the air. American pilots and
their commanding officers are heavily dependent on information from
Kurdish troops. In several cases we have looked at, witnesses say
civilians were at the scene but the pilots — or the Kurds calling in the
strike — thought they were Islamic State fighters.

In the few cases
where the United States admits killing civilians, the explanation is
often the same: the civilians ran into the target area just after the
pilots pulled the trigger.

As with al Gharra, this incident occurred in a
small village near al Hasaka, the village of al Khan.

According to the witness interviewed by
GlobalPost, coalition airstrikes struck the village in the early hours
of Dec. 7, killing dozens of civilians.

The coalition said it had previously carried out a
credibility assessment on the strike in al Khan after reports of
civilian casualties emerged, among them a report by McClatchy.

The coalition’s report for that day said that a number of airstrikes
were carried out “near al Hawl.”On this occasion, the coalition disclosed the location of the airstrikes
it carried out on Dec. 7 — showing them to be south of al Hawl. According to a local activist group that reported from the scene of the
strike, the village of al Khan sits about 10 miles southwest of al Hawl —
in the same area the coalition said strikes had occurred.

GlobalPost provided segments of
testimony from a witness to the strike, and asked whether the village of
al Khan had been targeted.

The coalition responded: “We conducted a
credibility assessment on the allegation of civilian casualties near al
Khan Dec. 7, 2015. Since the coalition did not conduct airstrikes near
al Khan[BY NAME] on Dec. 7, 2015, there was no investigation conducted.”

The coalition’s response to the two
incidents illustrates how without very specific information about the
location of alleged civilian casualties, most claims don’t make it past
the credibility check.

On both occasions the coalition initially denied
hitting the villages, but appeared to be basing those conclusions on a
cursory search in their records for the SPECIFIC NAMES of the small hamlets.

Even
Mount Abdul-Aziz — 50 miles from end to end, and which allies on the
ground said was captured with the backing of US airstrikes — did not
appear when the coalition searched its records.

They say the village was hit
by rockets and strafed in the early hours of Dec. 7, killing some 47
civilians, half of them children.

We spoke to one of the residents by
phone, an Arab man in his 30s who, fearing reprisals from the Kurds,
wants to be known only by his nickname, Abu Khalil.

Abu Khalil does not support the Islamic State. He is a former civil
servant in the Syrian education ministry and once served in the regime
army (he deserted). “People in al Khan didn’t like IS and always avoided
talking to them,” he said. The villagers even tried to expel them. Several residents say the village was hit
by rockets and strafed in the early hours of Dec. 7, killing some 47
civilians, half of them children. The war against the
Islamic State here is, again, being waged by American aircraft above and
Kurdish militia forces on the ground.

Abu Khalil accepts that there was
an Islamic State presence in al Khan. But he said: “There were fewer
than 10 fighters in the village, including two locals. And they all
stayed together at one place.”
THE VILLAGERS ROSE UP AGAINST 'IS'According to one report, there was an altercation
that escalated into an exchange of fire. The Islamic State apparently
responded by sending reinforcements to al Khan. This convoy, it
seems, was spotted by the Kurds, who no doubt thought they were seeing a
big movement of troops to the front line — and called in air support.

If
this version of events is true, it is a bitter irony for the villagers. It would mean their brave opposition to the Islamic State resulted in a
brutal attack by American aircraft AGAINST MEN FIGHTING TO SAVE THEIR VILLAGE, BATTLING 'ISIS'.
Abu Khalil is haunted by that night of carnage and destruction.

“It was past midnight. We were sleeping.
We were suddenly wakened by a
huge explosion.
The house shook. The windows shattered. There was
shrapnel in the walls.

I ran out and saw my neighbor’s house completely
destroyed.
He told me, ‘Abu Khalil, I managed to rescue my wife and son
but I can’t find my six-month-old baby. Help me!’

I could hear people
calling from underneath the rubble.
My neighbor’s mother was crying out.
She’s 70.
I pulled her out, along with a boy and his mother. They were
all OK."

“My mother and my aunt both came running to help dig through the
rubble.

But while we did this, a helicopter — an Apache — came overhead.It fired.
They had machine guns with explosive bullets.
I was hit. I
still have the shrapnel in my body.

I fell into the hole made by the
airstrike. That was what saved me.

The helicopter circled round again
and fired a second time.
My mother and aunt were killed.
The woman and
her son I’d rescued were killed.Everyone but me was killed.
Three powerful rockets were used in the first airstrike. They left a
two-meter deep hole in the ground. Anyone could see the hole until the
Kurdish militia filled it.
They don’t let anyone go near the place or
take pictures.Nineteen people died in that one house."WHO AMONG US CAN FORGET THE FOOTAGE THAT WAS LEAKED OF THE AMERICAN HELICOPTER CREWS KILLING THE REUTERS JOURNALIST/CAMERA CREW, ATTACKING THE VAN FULL OF CHILDREN, THE FARMERS IN THEIR FIELDS TRYING TO PLOW AT NIGHT?

WHO CAN IGNORE THE TESTIMONIES OF OUR OWN MILITARY WHO ADMITTED AMERICAN AND "COALITION" TROOPS WENT DOOR-TO-DOOR IN IRAQ, KICKING IN THOSE DOORS, THEN KILLING EVERYONE INSIDE, EVEN RAPING WOMEN BEFORE KILLING THEM?

YES, "WAR IS HELL" AND WAR DRIVES GOOD MEN INSANE, BUT WAR ALSO EXCUSES THE TRULY BAD MEN, WHO SEE THIS AS "SPORT", WHO KNOW THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH MURDER.

IS SYRIA ANY DIFFERENT?SAME THING IN KHASHAM

A report logged on Oct. 17, 2014 cites the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights as the source. The group, which has a network of sources on the
ground across Syria, reported the death of a number of civilians as the
result of a coalition strike on an oil facility in Khasham, Syria. Local
activists reportedly named four of the victims,
saying they were fuel tank drivers.

The incident was subject to a
credibility assessment, but it did not make it to the investigation
stage. The coalition notes in its assessment that a strike DID take
place on the facility on Oct. 16, but reported that aircrews "did not
observe any personnel on their targeting pod prior to weapon
release." [BECAUSE AIR CREWS DID NOT REPORT CIVILIANS IN THE TARGET AREA] the "investigators" concluded that there was “insufficient evidence” to
determine civilian casualties. So it was never fully investigated.

In other cases, reports of civilian deaths are
deemed not credible without ANY explanation.

BACK IN IRAQ

One report, the initial source
of which was a freelance journalist who posted a picture of a partially
destroyed house on Twitter, came on Jan. 22, 2015 in Nineveh province,
Iraq, but even with photographic evidence, it was dismissed.

The coalition’s credibility assessment notes that a total of 32
targets were struck in the province on Jan. 21 and 22, six of which
involved striking buildings.

“Initial assessment is that only 2 strikes
[are] possible for this allegation (one was engaged by UAV {Unmanned Aerial Vehicle}, both had UAV
coverage)” the coalition notes.

But like so many others, the coalition’s assessment
closes with the words: “Not credible. No further inquiry required.”

There is no further explanation in the coalition’s check.

25 YEARS OF BOMBING IRAQJanuary 21, 2016
CNN reports: “Nearly 19,000 civilians were killed in Iraq between
January 2014 and October 2015 — a toll the United Nations calls
‘staggering’ in a new report [PDF].

“The figure of 19,000 is the number of dead from armed conflict. Previous studies like the landmark Lancet studies
estimate ‘excess deaths’ due to violence as well as lack of water,
food, shelter, medicine, etc.
This study notes, ‘In addition, the number
of civilians who have died from the secondary effects of armed conflict
and violence — such as lack of access to basic food, water or medical
care — is unknown.’ So the number of dead is higher than 19,000 for this
period; we don’t know how much higher.”

A 2006 Lancet study estimated over 650,000 excess deaths from the 2003 invasion.

In 1998, Denis Halliday, who had just resigned as the head of the UN
“oil-for-food” program, gave a speech on Capitol Hill, citing a
“conservative estimate” of “child mortality for children under five
years of age is from five to six thousand per month.”

The United States has been bombing Iraq almost continuously for a
quarter of a century. In fact, the U.S. bombings over the years were
often based on false or dubious rationales,
most obviously the 2003 invasion under the pretext of ridding Iraq of
non-existent weapons of mass destruction, but that’s just the tip of the
iceberg.

The initial 1991 attack obliterated the infrastructure of
Iraq. There were bombings of Iraq throughout the 1990s, they never stopped. RAED JARRAR, rjarrar at afsc.org Jarrar is the government relations manager with the American Friends
Service Committee, a Quaker organization. His colleagues recently stated
in a Philadelphia Inquirerop-ed: “Saturday marked 25 years since the 1991 launch of Operation Desert
Storm with bombing attacks against Baghdad and other cities in Iraq.
U.S. ground troops entered the country by late February and a cease-fire
agreement was signed in March. A quarter century later, Iraq is still
spiraling down, the United States is still bombing, and a devastating
war rages in Syria, further destabilizing the region.”

The group also recently released a statement about the start of the
1991 bombing: “In just over a month, thousands of civilians, including
families hiding in bomb shelters, had been killed as well as tens of
thousands of Iraqi troops, including those withdrawing from Kuwait. It
was a massive bombing campaign. Tremendous damage had been inflicted on
homes, businesses, and infrastructure. All while Iraq was dealing with
harsh, painful economic sanctions.A UN report concluded that the impact
of the war had reduced Iraq to a ‘pre-industrial age.’

HARDLINERS IN THE MILITARY

War will always result in civilian casualties — and
some in the US military want the strategy to recognize that.

Those in
uniform cannot state their views openly but a former US Air Force
general, David Deptula, argues that the current policy is imposing
restrictions on the fighting men and women in the field well beyond the
laws of war.

“The laws of armed conflict do not require, nor do they
expect, a target of zero unintentional civilian casualties,” he told me.

“There is no such thing as immaculate warfare, it’s a horrible thing,
an ugly thing, and … we need to finish it as rapidly as possible…What is
the logic of a policy that restricts the use of air power to avoid the
possibility of collateral damage, while allowing the certainty of the
Islamic State’s crimes against humanity?”

The Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby,
has said: “No other military on Earth takes the concerns over collateral
damage and civilian casualties more seriously than we do.”

Yet, as the
examples show, there has been no honest official estimate of how
many civilians the United States has killed in Iraq and Syria.

Even if
civilian casualties are an inevitable part of a “just” war, the Western
public is being fed the comforting illusion that war can be fought
without shedding innocent blood.

And that is simply not the case.

DRONE WARS

Chris Woods, the founder of Airwars who has dealt
more closely with the coalition than perhaps any other journalist,
thinks the problem may be one of the military’s investigative ability,
rather than an attempt to cover anything up.

“I think this is often more cockup than conspiracy.
Quite often the UK or France will report airstrikes on a particular day
at a particular location — while in its own reporting the coalition
makes no mention at all of those cities or towns.

But then what's often
being summarized is perhaps dozens of munitions releases at multiple
locations, compressed into a handful of more media-friendly reports of
'airstrikes.'”

The result is that Americans are led to believe that
the air campaign in Syria and Iraq can be waged shedding very few
innocent lives.

IT'S THE SAME IN PAKISTAN.

A new report from a team of British and Pakistani journalists finds one
U.S. drone strike occurs every four days in Pakistan.

The Bureau of
Investigative Journalism estimates U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have
killed as many as 775 civilians, including 168 children, since 2004.

The
report also challenges a recent claim by President Obama's top
counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, that no civilians have been
killed in the drone attacks for nearly a year. According to the Bureau's
researchers, at least 45 civilians were killed in 10 U.S. attacks
during the last year. (NOTE: THIS WAS IN 2011)

During the war in Afghanistan (2001–present), over 26,000 civilian deaths due to war-related violence have been documented;29,900 civilians have been wounded.Over 91,000 Afghans, including civilians, soldiers and militants, are
recorded to have been killed in the conflict, and the number who have
died through indirect causes related to the war may include an
additional 360,000 people.These numbers do not include those who have died in Pakistan.

The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan
(UNAMA) publishes statistics on civilian casualties, splitting them
into deaths caused by government/military forces, anti-government forces
and so on.
True, they're not very visible on the UNAMA site and are not
updated regularly in a visible way - but they do seem to be the best we
can get.

They published a report in February this year which has provided these details.
Obviously, collecting accurate statistics in one of the most dangerous countries in the world is difficult.
But the paucity of reliable data on this means that one of the key measures of the war has been missing from almost all reporting.

WHY DID WE INVADE AFGHANISTAN WHEN WE KNEW USAMA BIN LADEN WAS HIDING IN PAKISTAN?

LOOK UP "OPERATION CYCLONE" SOMETIMES.HERE'S A COUPLE LINKS TO HELP FIND THAT <HERE> AND <HERE> .

IT WAS ONE OF THE LONGEST AND MOST EXPENSIVE COVERT OPERATIONS EVER UNDERTAKEN BY OUR CIA, ET AL.(2003. Charlie Wilson's War: The
Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. Atlantic
Monthly Press, page 246, 285 and 302)

AFTER AMERICA HAD SPENT BILLIONS TO HELP THE EARLY TALIBAN, WE WATCHED THEM MORPH INTO WHAT WE CLAIM TO BE FIGHTING TODAY...BUT KIDS ARE STILL DYING, AS ARE OUR OWN BRAVEST AND BEST, OUR OWN SONS AND DAUGHTERS, IN THAT SANDLOT WAR.THEN, AS NOW IN SYRIA, IT WAS A DAMNED PROXY WAR WITH THE U.S. USING THIRD WORLD NATIONS AGAINST RUSSIA.We have proof of that in "Congressional Appropriations", the SAME place we can see that the BUSH #1 regime sent "agricultural" checks to Saddam up until one month before we invaded Iraq ( invaded it as a butt-kiss to Kuwait and to punish Saddam for going "rogue", for starting that "oil for GOLD" idea of his.)

"The U.S. shifted its interest from Afghanistan after the withdrawal of
Soviet troops. American funding of Afghan resistance leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezbi Islami party was cut off immediately."
[ SEE: Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. by Gilles Kepel Translated from French by Anthony F. Roberts]Russia left, game over, you see.

IF, IF EVER, AMERICA'S INVASIONS AND INTERFERENCES WERE ABOUT HELPING "POOR OPPRESSED PEOPLE"ANYWHERE, DON'T YOU THINK WE'D HAVE STAYED BEHIND AND REBUILT WHAT WE DESTROYED, HELP THE PEOPLE RECOVER FROM OUR ATTACKS, AT LEAST REPAIR THE INFRASTRUCTURE, MAYBE GET THE POWER BACK ON, GIVE THE PEOPLE BACK CLEAN WATER, HELP THEM RAISE FOOD, TEACH THEM TO CREATE A STRONG, UNITED GOVERNMENT, REMOVE ALL THE DEPLETED URANIUM AS BEST WE CAN?

BUT, NO, NO, WE GO IN, STIR THE PROVERBIAL HORNETS' NEST UNTIL ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE, THEN HAVE A FEW THOUSAND BOMB RUNS, FLATTEN A FEW HUNDRED TOWNS, KILL A FEW THOUSAND CIVILIANS, AND THEN, EVENTUALLY, LEAVE...WELL, NOT REALLY LEAVE, BUT SAY WE LEFT.THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE LIED TO AND SCAMMED, AND THE PROPAGANDA MACHINES GO INTO WARP DRIVE TO DUMB US DOWN TO THE FACTS AND TRUTH SO WE AGREE TO REV UP THE OLD WAR MACHINE, MAKE WALL STREET A FEW TRILLION BUCKS TO MAKE THE WEAPONS OF WAR, TO "GO TO WAR", WHILE WE WAGE UNDECLARED WARS AGAINST NATIONS WHICH NEVER ONCE ATTACKED US.

AND THEN WE FIND ANOTHER "THEATER OF WAR" AND THE PLAY STARTS ANEW... IT'S CALLED "DEMOCRACY FOR ALL! AMERICA WILL SAVE YOU!"

SAVE YOU....ONE BOMB AT A TIME...ONE DRONE STRIKE AT A TIME, BY KILLING YOUR CHILDREN AND LAYING WASTE TO YOUR COUNTRY, BY PUSHING YOU BACK TO THE STONE AGE, IF NECESSARY, BUT BY ALL THE GODS, YOU WILL CHOOSE DEMOCRACY AND BOW TO AMERICA...OR ELSE...OR ELSE ...OR ELSE THIS....

20,000 MISSILES AND BOMBS.WE WILL NEVER KNOW THE TRUE NUMBER OF DEAD, EITHER OUR OWN DEAD OR THE CIVILIAN DEAD, IN OUR MANY RECENT "WARS".

THE ENEMY, YOU SEE, IS ANYONE WHO GETS IN THE WAY... AND OUR GOVERNMENT WILL JUSTIFY, EXCUSE, IGNORE AND HIDE THE NUMBERS FOR AS LONG AS THEY PLEASE TO CONTINUE INTERFERING IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE NATIONS OF EARTH.

AS A PARENT, I CAN BUT SAY, IN ALL HONESTY...IF ANYONE KILLED A CHILD OF MINE, WHETHER BY ACCIDENT OR ERROR OR INTENT, I WOULD NEVER REST NOR SLEEP UNTIL I SAW THAT PERSON BROUGHT TO WHAT WOULD THEN BE JUST MY IDEA OF PROPER JUSTICE... JUSTICE "WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE"...

AND THAT, GENTLE READERS, IS ONE WAY WE ARRIVE AT UNENDING, PERPETUAL, ETERNAL WAR...IT'S CALLED REVENGE...IT'S NOT A "PROPER" THING, NOT A "MORAL" THING, REVENGE, BUT TELL THAT TO ANYONE WHO HAS BURIED A MURDERED CHILD...